God's Thoughts

"I want to know God's thoughts; all the rest are just details."

-- Albert Einstein

I wish the Cubs would stop losing so many games! What's for dinner? I hope this new book is good. Do these pants make my butt look big? Our usual everyday thoughts are so mundane! We recycle the same material over and over through our heads like bad summer programming on the CW network. And brainstorms? Forget 'em. We're lucky if we get a light drizzle.

Ah, but God, on the other hand, he must have some really bodacious thoughts! BIG thoughts. Not the trivial crap that our monkey minds seem to be obsessed with. What are the thoughts of God? How do we find them?

Over many centuries, millenniums even, spiritual practices have been developed to do just that. While they may differ in form, all true practices bring about a transformation of heart, of mind that allows us to see the world from the perspective of the Divine. We access God's thoughts because we realize our own divine nature and the Unity of all existence. God's thoughts become readily available and transparent to us.

So what does God think? Best if you go find out for yourself. Mystics, seers and sages of all traditions have given us some hints, though. It seems God sees Unity within diversity. God honors all with awareness and love and rejects no one. God's thoughts are all encompassing and affirming, not petty, jealous or discriminatory. God is the original big thinker and no one and nothing are left out of the embrace of his thoughts. God thinks Truth.

In one sense, all spiritual practice is about is taking some time each day to let go of our small thoughts and allow the thoughts of God to enter our consciousness. "The devil is in the details," they say. So, let the details go for now. Relax and dwell in the mind of God.

Follow the Fine Silvery Stream

"Be soft in your practice. Think of the method as a fine silvery stream, not a raging waterfall. Follow the stream, have faith in its course. It will go its own way, meandering here, trickling there. It will find the grooves, the cracks, the crevices. Just follow it. Never let it out of your sight. It will take you."

-- Sheng-yen

I don't know who Sheng-yen is. Some Zen dude, I think. When he talks about "the method" I believe he's referring to the Zen practice of sitting meditation. It really doesn't matter, though, who he is or what the method is -- he's nailed it!

Every practice in every spiritual tradition follows "a fine silvery stream." It is at the same time a universal stream and a secret stream that is personal. private, and unique to you. It is as if all streams are made up of the same water, and all lead home to the same ocean, but each take a different route to get there.

It matters not whether your practice is sitting meditation, yoga, tai chi, contemplative prayer, or inner tennis. In each and every true spiritual practice is found the thread of Spirit that binds you to the Divine. There are no rigid stages of growth, no blueprints, no road maps for the journey. Trickling and meandering, the path is anything but straight. Your only real charge is to follow it.

How do you follow it? You follow it by tuning in. You follow it by being aware. You follow it by heeding the call of your heart. You forget about musts and shoulds and rules and regulations. You relax into your intuition, and you see where it encourages you to go.

You sit or you walk or you stretch or you kneel or you dance. And in the midst of it all, you wait from your silent center for the stream to pull you. And you go. You don't know where the hell you're going, but you go anyway. Grooves, cracks and crevices await. 

Follow, explore, enjoy!